


Coward's Way Out

by horselizard



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consent Issues, Dark, Episode Related, Implied Selfcest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/pseuds/horselizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternative ending to "Out of Time" (Series VI cliffhanger).</p><p>Would any version of Rimmer really risk getting himself killed if there was another way out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coward's Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Starbuggers Red Dwarf Kink Meme. Original prompt: “Future!Rimmer (Out of Time)/Rimmer: got a head start on self-loathing.”
> 
> The canonical resolution to this cliffhanger doesn't quite ring true for me. This is closer to how I think things might have played out if it weren't for Rimmer's act of uncharacteristic heroism.

The cockpit lay in ruins, smouldering debris strewn across the bodies of the only three people Rimmer had ever come close to calling friends. Panicked, disbelieving, he bent over Kryten, shaking his inert shoulders, begging him to finish the sentence he had begun with his final words. There _had_ to be a way out of this.

His eye fell on the bazookoid by the door, and he froze, his frenzied mind racing. It might work. It just might. If he could get to the time drive...

He might save them. He might manage to change the future and save them all. Then again, he might cause some kind of unresolvably complicated temporal paradox and erase the whole lot of them from existence. No coward worth his salt wanted _that_ kind of responsibility. But no man who had nothing left to lose could still call himself a coward.

He staggered to his feet, gathering his courage. It wasn't an easy thing, to choose getting _oneself_ killed over plain old getting killed. But he would do it. He had to do it. It was what his crewmates would have wanted.

Suddenly, the communications monitor crackled into life, and Rimmer startled at the sight of his future self, looking just as dangerously composed as he had before they had opened fire.

“Well then, Arnie,” his corpulent double said mockingly, “this is your cue. Come on, you know how it goes. 'I surrender'.”

“What?!” Rimmer spluttered. “Why would you want me to surrender? I thought you were trying to kill us!”

“Indeed I was,” the older Rimmer replied smugly, “and I think I did rather well. From the looks of things,” he glanced around the cockpit of his own Starbug, as if morbidly double-checking, “I managed to pick off all the... _difficult_ ones. So now I should have no trouble getting what I want.”

The colour drained from Rimmer's face. “You... you let your crewmates _die_ , just so you could get hold of a working time drive?”

“Well, that wasn't the original plan. But sometimes one just has to improvise,” the older Rimmer yawned. “Oh, don't look so shocked. Why would I want to stay trapped in Deep Space forever, just for the sake of those three idiots? I can travel anywhere in space and time, now. I'm sure to meet some _much_ more interesting friends along the way.”

Rimmer's head was spinning, but he seized on a certainty and clung to it for all he was worth: his future self was wrong about _one_ thing. “You can't. You can't travel anywhere without the spare parts from our Starbug.” He reached for the bazookoid, his hands and voice shaking. “And you're never, _never_ going to get them.”

His future self scoffed. “I might be just as much of a weasel as I ever was, but I swear I was never that stupid. You really think you've got it in you to stop me? Wise up, Arnie. You can act as noble and loyal as you want, but without your morally-overdeveloped _acquaintances_ to hide behind, we both know you'll never go through with it. I'm offering you a chance to save your own worthless hide. And you're going to play the pathetic little coward and take it.”

Rimmer stared at the monitor, sick with fear, as he took in his counterpart's words, desperate to fight against them. He was paralysed with indecision, but trembling so violently that he could barely keep hold of the bazookoid. One path led to the possibility – the mere possibility – of death; the other, to the certainty of life. A hollow life, a hideous shadow of a life, haunted forever by the ghosts of his crewmates... perhaps a life where he would be trapped alone forever in this dingy, malfunctioning tin can of a lander... but a life nonetheless.

“What...” he began, his voice cracking, “...what would you do with me?”

Beneath the ridiculous moustache, his future self's mouth settled into a smug leer. “Oh, I'd let you come with me,” he replied expansively. “You'd be an amusing enough plaything. You know, there are certain things that tend to go together, in the places and times I'm used to frequenting. Good food... fine wine... and pretty young boys.” He smirked with satisfaction as Rimmer's eyes slowly grew wider. “And I've developed a taste for them _all_.”

Rimmer, his expression a picture of helpless terror, dropped his gaze to the carnage of the cockpit, the three lifeless bodies, the irreparable damage. The bazookoid clattered hollowly to the floor.

“I surrender,” he whispered.


End file.
